by Jan Potocki
At that time Athenagoras the philosopher came to Athens, saw the board and asked the price of the house. The reasonableness of the asking price aroused his suspicions. He made inquiries and was told the story, but far from making him withdraw, it encouraged him to complete the purchase without delay. He moved into the house, and that evening he ordered his bed to be laid out in the front room, called for writing-tables and a light and told his servants to retire to the back of the house. Fearing that his all-too-active imagination might succumb to baseless fear and produce idle phantoms, he concentrated his mind, his eyes and his hands on his writing.
During the first part of the night silence reigned in the house as everywhere else. But a little later he heard the clanking of iron on iron and the rattling of chains. He did not raise his eyes. He did not put down his pen. But he steeled himself and tried as it were to blot out all noise.
But the noise grew louder and seemed to be coming first from the door of his room, then from inside the room itself. He looked up and saw the spectre just as it had been described. The spectre was standing and beckoning to him. Athenagoras gestured to him to wait a little and went on writing as though nothing untoward had happened. The spectre then started to rattle his chains again in the very ears of the philosopher.
Athenagoras turned round and saw the spectre beckoning again. He got up, took the light and followed the phantom, who walked ahead with a slow tread as though weighed down by the chains. When he reached the courtyard of the house he suddenly disappeared, leaving our philosopher on his own. Athenagoras then picked some leaves and grass and put them on the spot where the spectre had left him, so that he would find it again. The next day he went to the magistrates and asked them to have the spot excavated. This was done. Fleshless bones bound up in chains were found. Time and the dampness of the earth had caused the flesh to rot away, leaving only bones in the fetters. The remains were collected together and the town assumed the responsibility of burying them. And ever since the corpse was paid its last respects it no longer disturbed the peace of the house.
When the cabbalist finished reading he added, ‘Ghosts have appeared throughout history, Reverend Father, as we see from the history of the Witch of Endor,4 and cabbalists have always had the power to summon them up. But I admit that in other ways there have been great changes in the world of demons. Vampires, among others, are new inventions, if I may put it that way. I myself distinguish two species: the vampires of Hungary and Poland, who are corpses which leave their tombs at night to suck human blood, and the vampires of Spain, who are foul spirits which assume the first dead body they come across, turn it into any imaginable shape and…’
Realizing what the cabbalist was getting at, I left the table with a haste which was somewhat discourteous and went out on to the terrace. I had been there for less than half an hour when I saw my two gypsy girls, who appeared to be coming towards the castle and from that distance looked just like Emina and Zubeida. I immediately decided to use my key. I went into my bedroom, fetched my sword and cloak and then hurried down to the river gate but, having opened it, the hardest part was yet to come, for I had still to cross the river. To do so, I had to edge along the retaining wall of the terrace, holding on to the iron rings which had been placed there for that purpose. I eventually reached the bed of stones and by leaping from one to the next I reached the other bank and came face to face with the gypsy girls. They were not my cousins. They did not have their refinement although they were not as common and vulgar as the women of their race usually are. It almost seemed as if they were only playing at being gypsies. They wanted first to tell my fortune. One opened out my hand and the other pretended to see my future in it, saying:
‘Ah, Señor, que veja en vuestra bast? Dirvanos kamela ma por quien? Por demonios!’
That is to say, ‘Ah, sir, what do I see in your hand? Much love but for whom? For demons!’
As you may well imagine, I would never have guessed that ‘dirvanos kamela’ meant ‘much love’ in the gypsy tongue. But they took the trouble to explain it to me and then they each took one of my arms and led me to their camp, where they introduced me to a healthy-looking and still robust old man who they said was their father.
The old man said in a mischievous way, ‘Do you know, Señor caballero, that you are in the midst of a band of which some ill is spoken in these parts? Are you not a little afraid of us?’
At the word ‘afraid’ my hand went to the hilt of my sword, but the old gypsy held out his hand in a friendly manner and said, ‘I am sorry, Señor caballero, I did not mean to offend you. Indeed such a thought was so far from my mind that I am inviting you to spend a few days in our company. If a journey in these mountains is something which may interest you, we can promise to show you their most beautiful and their most awesome valleys, the most agreeable parts and, hard by them, what are called their picturesque horrors. And if you enjoy hunting, you will have plenty of free time to satisfy your taste for it.’
I accepted this offer all the more eagerly because I was beginning to be bored by the cabbalist’s lectures and the isolation of his castle.
Then the old gypsy led me to his tent and said, ‘Señor caballero, this tent will be your quarters for as long as you choose to spend time with us. And I’ll have a small open tent erected right next to it for me to sleep in so that I can better see to your security.’
I replied to the old man that as I had the honour of being a captain in the Walloon Guards I was bound to rely for my protection on my sword alone.
This reply made him laugh and he said, ‘Señor caballero, the muskets of the bandits in these parts could kill a captain in the Walloon Guards as easily as anyone else. Once they have been told about you, you will even be able to leave our band and go off on your own, but until then it would be imprudent to try.’
The old man was quite right and I felt somewhat ashamed at my bravado.
We spent the evening wandering around the camp and talking to the young gypsy girls, who seemed to me to be the most wanton and also the happiest women in the world. Then supper was served. The table was laid in the shade of a carob tree near the chief’s tent. We stretched out on deerskins and the food was served on a buffalo hide, which had been treated to resemble Morocco leather, and which took the place of a table-cloth. The food was good, especially the game. The chief’s daughters poured out the wine, but I preferred to drink water from a spring which flowed from the rock a few paces away. The chief kept the conversation going pleasantly. He seemed to know all about my adventures and predicted that I would have more.
At last it was time to go to bed. One was made up for me in the chief’s tent and a guard was posted at the door. But towards the middle of the night I was awoken with a start. Then I sensed that my blanket was being lifted from both sides at the same time, and I felt two bodies pressing against mine. ‘Merciful God,’ I said to myself. ‘Will I have to wake up again between two hanged men?’
But this idea soon left my head. I supposed that what was happening was an aspect of gypsy hospitality and that it would be hardly right for a soldier of my age not to go along with it. Later I fell asleep in the firm conviction that my companions were not two hanged men.
The Twelfth Day
Indeed, I did not wake up under the gallows of Los Hermanos but in my bed, roused by the noises the gypsies made as they struck camp.
‘Get up, Señor caballero,’ said the chief to me. ‘We must cover a lot of ground today. You will ride on a mule which has not its equal in all Spain. You will not even feel yourself going along.’
I hastily dressed and mounted my mule. We went ahead with four gypsies all armed to the teeth. The rest of the band followed at a distance, led by the two girls with whom I thought I had spent the night. Sometimes the zigzags the paths made in the mountains caused me to pass several hundred feet above or below them. I stopped to look at them and they then seemed to me to be my cousins. The old chief seemed amused by my perplexity.
After
about four hours of strenuous progress we reached a plateau high up in the mountains and found there a large number of bales, which the old chief checked off. Then he said:
‘Señor caballero, this is merchandise from England and Brazil; enough to supply the four kingdoms of Andalusia, Granada, Valencia and Catalonia. The king loses somewhat by our little enterprise but he gets it back in another way, as a little smuggling consoles his people and keeps them happy. Besides, in Spain everyone is involved in it. Some of these bales will find their way to military barracks, some to monastic cells and yet others to the vaults of the dead. The bales marked in red are due to be seized by the alguaziles,1 who will thereby gain credit with the customs officers and will be all the more devoted to our interests.’
Having said this, the gypsy chief hid the bales in different hollows in the rock. Then he had a meal served in a cave, the view from which stretched much further than the eye could see, by which I mean that the horizon was so distant that it seemed to blend into the sky. As I had been coming to appreciate the beauties of nature more and more, this sight sent me into a veritable ecstasy which was dispelled by the chief’s two daughters, who brought the food. At close quarters, as I have said, they did not look at all like my cousins. Their furtive glances seemed to indicate that they were well pleased with me, but something in me told me that it was not they who had come to visit me in the night.
The girls brought a hot olla which some men who had been sent out in advance had been simmering the whole morning. The old chief and I ate copiously, the difference being that he interrupted his eating with the frequent embraces he gave to a skin filled with good wine whereas I was content with water from a nearby spring.
When we had satisfied our appetite I indicated to him that I was curious to know more about him. He demurred but I insisted, and eventually he agreed to tell me his story, which he began as follows:
THE STORY OF PANDESOWNA,
THE GYPSY CHIEF
All the gypsies in Spain know me by the name of Pandesowna, that is, the translation into their language of my surname, Avadoro, for I was not born a gypsy.
My father’s name was Don Felipe Avadoro. He had the reputation of being the most serious and methodical man of his age. He was so methodical, in fact, that if I told you the story of one of his days you would at once know his whole life’s history, or at least the history of the time between his two marriages, the first to which I owe my existence and the second which caused his death by the irregularity it introduced into his style of life.
While my father was still living in his own father’s house he grew deeply attached to a distant relative, whom he married once he had become the head of the family. She died giving birth to me. My father was inconsolable at her loss and shut himself away in his house for several months, refusing even to receive those who were close to him. Time, which heals all things, assuaged his grief too, and eventually he appeared at the door of his balcony, which looked out on the Calle de Toledo. There he breathed in the fresh air for a quarter of an hour and then opened a window which looked out on to the side-street. He saw some of his acquaintances in a house across the street and greeted them quite cheerfully. He was seen to do the same thing in the days which followed, and this change in his way of life finally reached the ears of my mother’s maternal uncle, Fray Gerónimo Sántez, a Theatine monk.2
This monk called on my father, congratulated him on his return to health, spoke a little about the consolation which religion affords us and much more about my father’s need for recreation. He even went so far as to suggest that he should go to the theatre. My father had the greatest confidence in Fray Gerónimo and went that very evening to the Teatro de la Cruz. A new play was being performed there which had the support of the whole Pollacos, while the Sorices were trying to ensure that it flopped. The rivalry between these two theatrical factions interested my father so much that from that time on he never willingly missed a single performance. He even made a point of supporting the Pollacos and would only go to the Teatro del Príncipe when the Teatro de la Cruz was closed.
After the performance he would join the end of the double line which the men formed to compel the women to file past one by one. But he did not do so as the others did to be able to inspect them at his leisure. On the contrary, he showed little interest in them and once the last woman had gone by he would make his way to The Cross of Malta, where he would partake of a light supper before returning home.
The first task of the morning for my father would be to open the door of the balcony which looked out over the Calle de Toledo. There he would breathe in the fresh air for a quarter of an hour; then he would open the window which looked out on to the side-street. If there was anyone at the window opposite he would greet them courteously, saying ‘Agour’, then close the window. ‘Agour’ was sometimes the only word he would utter all day, for although he was passionately interested in the fate of all the plays performed at the Teatro de la Cruz he would only manifest this interest by clapping, never by speaking. If no one was at the window opposite he would wait patiently for someone to appear so that he could perform his courteous greeting.
Next, my father would go to Mass in the Theatine house. On his return he would find the room had been cleaned by the maidservant of the house. He himself took particular care to see that every piece of furniture was put back in exactly the same place it had been in the day before. He was extraordinarily careful about this and was quick to discover the tiniest piece of straw or speck of dust which had escaped the maidservant’s broom.
When my father was satisfied that his room was in order, he would take a pair of compasses and a pair of scissors, cut up twenty-four pieces of paper of equal size and, filling each of them with a pinch of Brazilian tobacco, would make twenty-four cigarettes which were so well-rolled and so uniform in size that they could be considered the most perfect cigarettes in all Spain. He would smoke six of these masterpieces while counting the tiles on the roof of the palacio de Alba, six more in counting the people coming through the Toledo gate, then he would fix his gaze on the door of his room until his dinner was brought to him.
After dinner he would smoke the remaining twelve cigarettes. Then he would stare at the mantel clock until it struck the hour of the day’s theatrical performance, and if there was no performance that day he would go to Moreno’s bookshop to listen to the men of letters who used to assemble there at that time. But he would never join in the conversation. Whenever he was ill he would send to Moreno’s for the play that was being performed at the Teatro de la Cruz, and at the time the performance was due to begin, he would begin to read the play, not forgetting to clap at all the passages which the Pollacos claque had the habit of applauding.
This was a very innocent life, but my father, wishing to fulfil his religious duties, asked the Theatines for a confessor. They sent him my great-uncle, Fray Gerónimo Sántez, who took this opportunity of reminding him that I was alive and living in the house of Doña Felisa Dalanosa, my late mother’s sister. Whether my father feared that the sight of me would revive memories of the beloved person whose death I had unwittingly caused or whether he did not want my infant cries to disturb his silent habits, it is a fact that he asked Fray Gerónimo never to let me come near him. At the same time, however, he did see to my needs by making over to me the income from a quinta or farm near Madrid which he owned, and he made me a ward of the Procurator of the Theatines.
It seems, alas, that my father, in keeping us apart, had some inkling of the tremendous difference which nature had set between our two characters. You have heard how methodical and orderly he was in the way he lived. I venture to claim that it would be almost impossible to find a more inconstant man than I am and have always been.
I have even been inconstant in my inconstancy, because in my travels and wanderings I have always been haunted by the idea of tranquil happiness and a life of retirement, and the taste of something new has always lured me from such a life, so that now that I fin
ally know myself for what I am I have put an end to these restless alternatives by settling down with this gypsy band. In one way it is a sort of retirement to an orderly way of life, but at least I do not have the misfortune of always looking out on the same trees and rocks or, what would be even more intolerable, the same streets, the same walls and the same roofs.
Here I interrupted and said to the storyteller, ‘Señor Avadoro – or Pandesowna – I imagine that such a wandering life must have brought you many strange adventures.’
The gypsy replied, ‘Señor caballero, I have indeed seen some extraordinary things since I have lived in these remote parts. As for the rest of my life, however, it only comprises quite humdrum events, in which all that is remarkable is the infatuation I showed for experiencing different forms of life, though without embracing any one of them for more than a year or two at a time.’
Having given me this reply, the gypsy continued as follows:
I have already told you that my Aunt Dalanosa had taken me in to live with her. She herself had no children and showed me, it seemed, all the indulgence of an aunt together with that of a mother. In a word, I was a spoilt child. Indeed, I became daily more spoilt, for as I grew in strength and intelligence, I was also more tempted to take advantage of the kindness I was shown. But on the other hand, since I scarcely ever encountered obstacles to my own desires, I in turn scarcely ever resisted the wishes of others. And this made me seem almost docile. In any case, my aunt always accompanied her orders with a certain tender and affectionate smile, and I never refused them. In short, such as I was, the good Dalanosa was pleased to believe that in me Nature had produced with her aid a veritable masterpiece. But her happiness was in one crucial respect incomplete, because she was not able to bring to my father’s attention my so-called progress and persuade him of my accomplishments, for he steadfastly refused to see me.
